Michael Tarver Speaks Out - What Went Wrong, Problems With Cena, Nexus

Former Nexus member Tyrone Evans (a/k/a Michael Tarver) was a guest on this week's episode of Unplugged. You can listen to the full episode at this link (at the 43 minute mark). Highlights are as follows:

What the Nexus members were told prior to their Raw debut:

"Well actually, we didn't know anything until the night we showed up at the arena. We weren't told anything, we showed up pre show, did our usual rehearsals and right before the show started we got pulled into an office and we were told there was a decision made about The Nexus. Wade Barrett was approached and he approached the rest of us and we all sat down and had this very intense meeting and agreed not to tell anyone in the Locke room. Basically we were told if this leaked out, it was coast us our jobs but if we did it correctly, the potential could be unbelievable. When I walked out there, I can even describe the feeling of walking out through the crowed and seeing people's reaction. When we left, the arena was like a cold, dead silence and no one left(the arena). Like I said, we weren't told much until the very last minute and the rest of the lockeroom didn't even know and they started questioning us when they saw us warming up at the end of the very last match of the night as everyone was about to leave and we come out and destroy everything…. They told us two things; destroy everything and don't touch the cameras. Apparently during the melee, there was a fan, and if you remember there was a bell ringing and no one there to ring it, a fan had reached over the guard rail and started ringing the bell."

"There were a lot of things floating around as far as the reason for that: one being that he choked out someone with a tie,that he spit in John Cena's face and we were never given deferent answer to why that happened, we were all surprised and we were all very much surprised at Summerslam when he came back. We kind of had a clue he was coming back but we weren't sure and WWE is really good about keeping their storylines behind closed doors to protect them.. in most cases. We weren't really told much; we were just very disappointed and surprised by it. I remember personally reaching out to him and never heard anything and I was like, "Ok, what's going on" as I'm friends with him but you don't know, it could have been a planned angle from the start."

Who or What was meant to be The Nexus's "Higher Power"?

"As far as the story when, we has gotten a hint that there had been someone pulling the strings behind Wade Barrett as what was told to us and what we had to portray. It never came to light, who or what it may be. There was a lot of speculation with fans as far as who was doing the talking and who was doing the writing and who was pulling the strings. There was a lot of things behind the scenes that the fans didn't see that if they has seen, would have seen the Nexus in a new perspective on the entire thing."

What lead to The Nexus being disbanded?

"We honestly did not know. As far as what happened, we did not understand why we had to lose at SummerSlam but we had to understand and appreciate being there. In my opinion, I felt we could have come away with the victory there and it wouldn't have hurt any of the Superstars that we were working with because they were long sine established and we were just getting established. As far as Darren Young getting eliminated, we were never told why, the fans were never told why then Skip Sheffield had a really bad injury to his leg and then my injury as well."

His opinion on John Cena:

"Professionally, I have the up most respect for John Cena. I think John Cena is the face of the company and should be the fact of the company because there is no one there that can do it the way he does it. John Cena is who he is for a reason, I've never seen anyone work as hard as he does and the man is working (between) 5 and 7 days a week for WWE, Basically he is WWE. Personally, I don't really care for him but it doesn't matter if I care for him."

His side of the story about John Cena purposely injuring him with a chair:

"That night, David Otunga and I knew that we were taking chair shots and we knew when we were taking them, something of that magnitude can be dangerous and we were prepared for it. I had my reservations about it because on an independent show in 2005, a guy I was working with hurt me pretty bad with a chair, hitting me in the back of the head and necking leading to me being temporally unconscious and paralyzed for 45 minutes so I had reservations about taking chair shots. (During the segment), I look over and see David Otunga taking his shot and it sounded like it was a lot harder than it show have been so as I prepared for mine, I felt it and it felt like he was trying to swing for a home run so I dropped out and I wasn't selling it because I was legit hurt. As I'm laying there, I see David Otunga taking multiple chair shots, more than the one that we were told we were taking so when I saw that I decided to get out of there because I was thinking about what happened in 2005 and when I get up, I see part of a chair swinging towards me and I put my left arm up to protect myself.

"Now before I continue, when you are in a situation like that in pro wrestling/sports entertainment and you know there is something that dangerous planned, there is no reason for you to have to protect yourself in that way from being legitimate hurt. There is a reason to protect yourself in a match to get that part over but to protect yourself like if you were getting shot at is something different. I'm not trying to say Cena was trying to maliciously hurt me, I'm just saying he wasn't being very careful. So when he swung the chair, and I put my arm up to project myself, the point of the chair caught my left arm and immediately felt bones crack and knew something was seriously wrong so I ran because I wasn't going to take another shot as I knew I couldn't protect myself.

"I get backstage and its customary being a rookie, being as it is entertainment and we work together, for you to shake hands and thank the person, especially someone like John Cena, to shake his hand and thank him for that experience because he didn't have to work with me or any of us for that matter. I'm in the back and I'm kicking all the trash cans and I'm angry and I'm trying not to yell because I didn't want to lose my job. As he came back, I put my hand out and said "Thank You" and he just looked at me and walked past and of course I was even more angry. He made it about five more steps, looked over his shoulder, laughed and said "How's the arm?" and I said "It's fine" and he laughed again and walked off."